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Stress and Emotional Eating
- by: Fit Body By George Team
As the name indicates, stress eating (or emotional eating) is when we eat for reasons other then being hungry, when we are dealing with stress, sadness, depression, and such. Under those circumstance, we tend to go for sugary, processed or other unhealthy foods and many times we overeat. And then feel bad, start the cycle again and we don’t know how to get out of it.
Fixing the Cause, Not the Symptom: The Truth About Emotional Eating and Health
The reason it seems to be never-ending process is because we are not treating the real cause just by eating food. It is the same thing as if a doctor puts you on cholesterollowering medication without finding out what is causing the unbalanced cholesterol levels. Sometimes, it could be insulin resistance, other times it could be oxidative stress leading to cell damage that’s causing high cholesterol. Cholesterol is not the bad guy. It is there because there is some sort of damage. It is like thinking firefighters cause fire because they are always there when fire happens. The medication will lower your cholesterol, but it is just patching the problem without addressing the cause. Eating food to deal with negative emotions is just like that, it is patching the problem because it creates an illusion of better feeling in the moment, but it is not solving the cause, so it is an endless cycle.
Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Feelings: The Key to Emotional Freedom
So where does negative emotion (anxiety, depression, stress, anger, etc.) come from? This is where the misunderstanding happens – we think it comes from the circumstances we are in. We think it is the external world (people, spouses, jobs, work) making us feel that way. In fact, it is our own thoughts that create our feelings. Try this now – think of someone you love, maybe your laughing baby, maybe your child achieving something great, maybe you won a lottery, maybe you are traveling to the destination you always wanted to travel, just anything. It is just a thought, so you can come up with anything. How did that thought make you feel even just for a split second? Your circumstance, your stressful work is still the same, the annoying people around you are still the same, the circumstance did not change, yet your feeling was positive in that very moment because of that one thought. Now if you are reading this email and you are feeling good, there is no problem occurring now and you are content, think of someone breaking into your car, or your wallet got lost, you lost your job, etc. How does that thought make you feel? Your circumstance is still the same, you are still being comfortable and save wherever you are reading this email from at this moment but that thought created a negative feeling. Our thoughts are very powerful, they create meaning of our circumstance which leads to our feelings and then reaction. Negative feelings don’t come from our circumstances, negative feelings come from our own thoughts. They don’t come from the external world, they come from inside of us. You can only feel your thinking.
Thoughts are our gift. We need thoughts to experience life. If we would not know what bad feels like, we would not know what good is like. If we would not understand fear, we would not know courage. If we would not know sad, we would not know what happy is like. We have been also gifted with thoughts so we can survive. We should feel insecure when we want to cross the road with heavy traƯic, so we don’t just blindly run into the middle of the road. That is how healthy mind uses the thoughts and feeling of insecurity – to survive in dangers of the external world. Unhealthy mind uses thoughts and feeling of insecurity against itself like when you feel judged by other people, for example. Feeling judged happens when you disconnect from your inner wisdom. It comes from the feeling of insecurity created by your thought because you are looking for approval and validation from others, instead of understanding the value of your inner wisdom regardless of what other people think about it. It is never about you. It is always about the other person who makes the judgement.
The reason it seems to be never-ending process is because we are not treating the real cause just by eating food. It is the same thing as if a doctor puts you on cholesterollowering medication without finding out what is causing the unbalanced cholesterol levels. Sometimes, it could be insulin resistance, other times it could be oxidative stress leading to cell damage that’s causing high cholesterol. Cholesterol is not the bad guy. It is there because there is some sort of damage. It is like thinking firefighters cause fire because they are always there when fire happens. The medication will lower your cholesterol, but it is just patching the problem without addressing the cause. Eating food to deal with negative emotions is just like that, it is patching the problem because it creates an illusion of better feeling in the moment, but it is not solving the cause, so it is an endless cycle.
Breaking the Cycle: Understanding Thought Patterns Behind Emotional Eating
It does not matter how religious you are, how rich or successful you are, how good of a person you are, we all face negative circumstances sometimes, that is just an existential cycle of life. We all play the same game. But it is your thought that will control how you feel about that circumstance, rather than the circumstance itself controlling your feeling.
So, next time you feel like you need to grab some food not because you are hungry but because you feel negative emotions, slow down, become present and observe your thoughts. What thoughts are you having in that exact moment? What kind of meaning are the thoughts painting for you in that very moment, in that circumstance? Do you have this same exact thought every single second of the entire day? Most likely not. We have thousands of thoughts every single day, we don’t have just one same thought all day, because our thoughts come to us through our senses, what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. We are constantly bombarded with information coming in through our senses leading to our thoughts. Thoughts come and go on their own. We don’t control their flow. We don’t know what thought we will have in 3 hours and 27 minutes from now. They are transient, they are just thoughts. And if we just observe them and let them be (instead of trying to control them, expand on them, trying to manage them) our senses will send a new information through what we see, hear, taste, touch or smell and a new thought will be created. We are not capable of thinking 2 thoughts at the very same moment, so a new thought means the old one is no longer there. Sure, you can bring it back, but that is your free will, and even if you do but you understand the principle of thought, then it will leave again until you realize there is no point of bring it back.
Conclusion
You already know all this because it is how we, human beings, were designed the moment we were born. We just forgot. If this makes sense, but it is not really hitting home, it is because you might be trying to work it out with your intellect. This understanding goes beyond your intellect and belief. When you truly have the understanding that it is you and your thoughts (not your circumstances) that create your negative emotions, you will know that it is impossible to solve your mind with food. If, however, this understanding is hitting home, but you are still eating bad food, thinking you have a stress/emotional eating problem, I dare to disagree. In that case, you are absolutely fine, you are just making bad choices because your health simply might not be your priority.
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